Read this excerpt from The Riddle of the Rosetta Stone by James Cross Giblin. Only those Egyptians who needed the knowledge for
their professions learned how to read and write. These included government officials, doctors, and priests, as well as the scribes who did the actual writing on papyrus and stone. The schooling of a scribe began at age five or six and was usually completed by age sixteen. Through long, hard hours of practice, the student learned to paint or carve more than six hundred different hieroglyphs. He also learned how to write in hieratic, a flowing form of hieroglyphic writing in which the individual symbols were joined. What inference can be made based on the details in the excerpt? Professional writers in ancient Egypt were highly skilled. Ancient Egyptians read for pleasure. Children in ancient Egypt were treated harshly. All children in ancient Egypt learned to write in hieratic.
The inference that can be made based on the details in the excerpt is that professional writers in ancient Egypt were highly skilled.
Explanation:
The passage presents evidence of how writing was an exclusive skill in Egyptian society. It was not taught to everyone in society at large but only government officials, administrators, and doctors or religious figures. The Rosetta Stone has helped Egyptologists to translate ancient Egyptian because there is an Ancient Greek translation of the hieroglyphs on the stone that was discovered in 1799.
